Last Updated 7.7.25. (G)
Reason 12: The steady rise of methane into the atmosphere from new methane releases from fracking, melting permafrost, tundra, and leaking natural gas lines.
These things act as another major hidden and dangerous source of our global failure to reduce fossil fuels. Unfortunately, we will likely cross the 600 ppm carbon threshold, the final extinction level. Crossing the 600 ppm carbon threshold will raise the average global temperature to 5°C (9°F) and trigger massive methane clathrate releases from coastal ocean shelves.
This massive methane release has occurred several times before, notably during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 56 million years ago and the Permian–Triassic extinction event, when up to 96% of all marine life species became extinct 252 million years ago. (Please click here to watch a short video that explains the extinction process brilliantly once we start releasing methane clathrate from our coastal shelves. New research shows we begin this release process once we reach 5°C, and by 6°C, it is in full bloom.)
Because methane released as a gas from methane clathrate is 86 times more potent than carbon as a temperature-increasing greenhouse gas, it will rapidly spike up the average global temperatures and eventually to extinction-accelerating levels.
Please click here to see another interactive global atmospheric methane graph. In this interactive graph, you can see the past 1,000 years of atmospheric methane levels. In addition, you can see how total atmospheric methane levels from all sources have exponentially skyrocketed, particularly during the last 50 years. (We strongly recommend that you take a few moments and review this powerful methane graph. If you are a tech person, its underlying documentation is also available.)
If methane continues to rise, pushing us toward the 600 ppm carbon tipping point and an average global temperature of 5°C, it will eventually lead to the extinction of humanity and the end of civilization as we know it.
(Please note: The fracking industry also has a concerted political effort to prevent the accurate measurement of total methane in the atmosphere to keep their growing methane release amounts hidden from the public.) When you add the effects of methane (measured in part as CO2e) for raising our global temperature along with the impact of rising atmospheric carbon, we are probably already well above our current carbon 425 ppm [around 450 CO2e+].)
Reason 13: We have a near-insoluble problem regarding a fair and internationally recognized climate change justice definition and fair climate change restitution and climate aid processes. In general, the industrialized, northernmost countries of the world have produced the most atmospheric carbon, contributing to global warming and its numerous consequences. The northern industrial countries have also contributed significantly to the global warming consequences affecting the developing world.
In the illustration below, most developing nations are located between the 45th parallel north and the 45th parallel south. Ironically, the northern industrialized nations that have predominantly contributed to the global warming problem will often also temporarily benefit from the changes that global warming creates in their countries' climate.
The northern nations, which are also the most responsible for the harm caused by global warming to the developing world, are unfairly resisting paying for the damages they have inflicted on these nations. Yet, at the same time, the northern nations are also fighting to take in the millions (or the coming billions) of new global warming climate refugees (aka climagees.)
In the following illustration, the lands above the 45th parallel north and below the 50th parallel (above the orange line at the top of the image) are where most of the human population will have to migrate as global warming continues to accelerate.
Developed nations do not want to pay fair and just damages to developing nations. There are also no international standards for enforceable justice in the undeveloped world to obtain restitution for the damages the developed world has caused. This absence is due to the lack of a global standard definition for climate justice or responsibility for ecological or atmospheric damage.
Without a clear definition of ecological, atmospheric justice, and responsibility, it will be impossible for the developing world to receive what it is due from the developed world. Additionally, the definition of justice and accountability varies across different nations and cultures, as well as within various religions and ethnicities.
Coming to a standard definition of climate justice and responsibility, including who pays fairly for the global warming damage they have caused, will likely never fully happen. However, as an ongoing sign of this injustice, the developed world has not even paid the previously agreed-upon (and grossly inadequate) amounts they agreed to pay to the developing world in previous global warming agreements.
This justice issue is highly relevant to resolving the climate change emergency. It is a massive problem because the developed world is unlikely to pay fair and adequate restitution (or provide adequate assistance) to the developing world for the damage it has caused.
This is because:
a. Those restitution costs are not paid just once. They will continue to rise exponentially as global warming accelerates. Damages to the developing countries will run into hundreds of trillions of dollars.
b. Developed countries will need all of their financial resources to survive and keep up with their ongoing climate catastrophes. And because of
c. inherent, known, and implicit biases against the cultures, religions, or ethnicities of the developing world by the developed world.
Due to many of the same reasons, developed nations will also fail to provide adequate funding to support the developing world in transitioning rapidly from fossil fuel energy generation to green energy generation and from fossil fuel use to green energy use. This also means the developed nations will first use their resources to convert their countries to green energy generation. At the same time, developing nations will not have adequate funding to do the same.
This ultimately means that the developing world, where most of its population now resides, will have to continue using fossil fuels at ever-increasing levels as its nations expand. This lack of care for the developing world means we will not be able to stop the global warming extinction emergency and its impending catastrophes, as most of the world will not be part of the solution.
Reason 14: Our governments are not even close to mass-mobilizing all of the needed human, financial and other resources required to achieve or come even close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, and we are almost out of time.
Individual actions, even if undertaken by hundreds of millions of us, will not bring us close to the 2025 global reduction target levels. Only a massive global mobilization, led by our governments, can work if we hope to even come close to the 2025 targets. It must be completed with the same urgency as the Manhattan Project or World War II mass mobilization. The Manhattan Project was the highest priority research and development undertaking during World War II. It produced the US's first nuclear weapons in just four years. No expense or resource was denied to this most senior project.
Without the following actions being done with the urgency of a Manhattan-like project or WWII-like mass mobilization by almost ALL world governments, there is little to no realistic hope we can avoid a mass extinction of most of humanity by or before mid-century.
Reason 15: No nation, organization, or individual is actually "driving" the global governance "car" to remedy climate change on a worldwide scale.
We do not have an effective global government or governance (a car without a driver) overseeing the well-being of humanity and the Earth's systems as a whole. Instead, what we have now is competing nations seeking their self-interests most frequently at the expense of other countries, peoples, and the environment.
One does not have to be a genius to know that a car in motion without a driver will always eventually crash!
It is unlikely that we will establish a valid global government or some other form of effective global governance with legislative, executive, and judicial powers that work for all humanity within the next 3-5 decades, if ever. Consequently, it is nearly certain that we will not complete all the necessary global warming extinction prevention actions listed in the Job One Plan in time. Consequently, without an effective global government, the "car" of humanity will crash and exceed the carbon 425-450 ppm climate change extinction tipping point.
Reason 16: If governments try to enforce the correct, painful and radical 2025 global fossil fuel reductions now needed, people will rebel, and those governments will soon be overthrown or collapse.
Today's modern governments rely heavily on the use of fossil fuels at nearly every level of their day-to-day operations. Several things would happen if today's developing governments cut their total fossil use by 75% before 2025 to meet the 2025 extinction-critical reduction levels. First, their military forces, which run on fossil fuels, would be near completely incapacitated. (No government would ever cripple its military in our dangerous world.)
Second, their citizens would also revolt and overthrow the government. This revolt would occur because enforcing the 2025 targets would cause so many to starve to death or suffer sudden, severe pain that they would riot and remove all politicians who voted for them.
Reason 17: Capitalism allows businesses to export and dump their waste products and polluting products into the environment with no costs. The government and public must pay later to clean up their mess.
We need to ensure that all businesses fully compensate for the waste products and pollution they generate. Capitalism needs to be regulated to adhere to the principle of the triple bottom line in all accounting practices.
Reason 18: We face a continual, unstoppable increase in average global warming temperature due to increased global fossil fuel use because of our ever-increasing global population. Due to the laws of physics governing the addition of new atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon, the global temperature will continue rising as more carbon particles are introduced into the atmosphere. Adding three (or more) carbon ppm per year for the next 30-50 years (as we are currently doing) does not account for any additional annual carbon ppm amounts resulting from the increased energy use as the human population continues to grow from 7 to 9-11 billion people. The three-carbon ppm per year also does not include many more people in the developing world who will soon move into the middle class, demanding the same high fossil fuel comforts as those in the developed world. This nearly doubling of the population and the massive increase in new middle-class energy demand could lead to an additional 25 to 40% increase in current global fossil fuel use.
When you look 30-50 years into the future and add only the additional 90-150 carbon ppm to our current total of 425 ppm, it is easy to see that there is no way for us to avoid crossing the carbon 500 ppm tipping point that precedes the next extinction. (We are averaging an additional three ppm of carbon each year. 30 x 3 = 90 and 50 x 3 = 150. Below, there will be more about the lasting effects of atmospheric carbon levels at or above the carbon 500 ppm level or at or beyond the carbon 600 ppm tipping point extinction level.)
Reason 19: Green energy generation will not save us in time or prevent us from going over critical extinction-level tipping points. This failure of green energy scaling is because it will take far too long to produce enough green energy to replace all or most of the energy generated by fossil fuel energy sources. This failure is critical because we have only until 2025 to achieve the required global fossil fuel reductions to save us from extinction.
Overhyping how fast green energy generation will replace fossil fuel energy generation is a near-universal illusion held by many individuals and environmental organizations alike. For the facts on this near-universal global warming illusion involving green energy, please see this Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study to verify we are a long, long way (about 400 years by MIT's estimates) from replacing most fossil fuel energy generation with green energy generation. Furthermore, the projected actual length of time it will take to transition from global fossil fuel energy generation to green energy generation is unclear.
This new information means that any realistic hope for a fast transition (in less than 50-100+ years) to full green energy generation to replace all fossil fuel energy generation is entirely unrealistic. Much of humanity will be long gone before the complete green energy revolution is fully implemented.
Reason 20: The promised other new "miracle" technologies, such as carbon capture and geoengineering, will not save us before it is too late! Some of you may hear the news that global warming is beyond our control and think, "Aren't they working on inventions that will suck the fossil fuel burning carbon particles out of the atmosphere in time to save us?" If you think this is our easy way out and solution to continue burning fossil fuels as "business as usual," please click here.
You can read why the currently nonexistent carbon capture technology is a Silicon Valley and techno-optimism delusion that will not save us in time. You will also learn why carbon capture technology is a mathematical and physical impossibility.
Today, you find carbon capture technology being forwarded primarily by impatient, profit-hungry entrepreneurs and mechanical engineers looking to make billions on the greatest catastrophe of human history.
In summary, believing that atmospheric carbon capture schemes will save us at the last minute from our ill-advised actions (instead of changing our fossil fuel-intensive lifestyles and behaviors) is equivalent to believing in magical carbon-sucking unicorns.
Reason 21: Accelerating global warming is not our only major global emergency! Eleven other major global emergencies will interact with global warming, continuing to divert the necessary human and financial resources away from addressing the global warming emergency. Click here to read about these other 11 major global emergencies and how they will interact with global warming, making it far harder to solve.
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